What’s The Deal With Yard Sales?

The Pine Valley area of Wilmington, where I live, is a magnet for both yard sales and those who love them. From roughly March through October, the neighborhood is sprinkled with crude signs promoting competing sales, and then on Saturday (always Saturday — church typically precludes a Sunday yard sale) the bargain hunters arrive. I walk my dog at 6:30am and sometimes see cars idling near driveways hours before the sale begins.

The Yard Sale is a uniquely American invention in which people sell redundant items to the parsimonious (that’s a $10 word for a person who would sooner spend $1 for a used cheese grater than let a perceived deal pass).

Like watching video of the 9/11 attacks, I’m simultaneously fascinated and repelled by yard sales. I’m intrigued by the early risers oblivious of time or common courtesy. These are accomplished yard sale types looking for serious deals – “hidden treasures,” in the parlance of the pastime — and they are merciless in their quest. After all, that beat up piece of luggage won’t last long, especially at that price. Nor will that rack of old clothes or that big square TV with those funny 3-dimensional knobs. I don’t begrudge these folks their strategy; I just can’t help but think they already have a garage filled with other people’s stuff. It’s a certain personality that makes yard sales a weekly event, and that personality likes “stuff”.

Yard sales make sense for people like recent college graduates, who may need to furnish a recently rented apartment or home. But I never see young people at Pine Valley yard sales.

I don’t resent people who have yard sales. It’s just something that doesn’t interest me. My neighbor had one recently, and made less than $50. Unless I was destitute, I’m not sure I’d go through the trouble to stage one. Call me sanctimonious, but giving old items away to friends, family or maybe Habitat for Humanity, makes me feel better than selling it to strangers. Freecycle, already mentioned several times in these pages, is another post-modern option of purging household unneeded items.

My wife avoids yard sales for wholly different reasons: she was scarred emotionally as a child (her mother was a zealous seller and buyer), and she feels guilty if she doesn’t buy anything.

So what’s up? Any readers of the Grove Project avid yard sales enthusiasts? What’s the attraction? The thrill of the hunt? Haggling? Social networking?

I’m as curious as that man over there scrutinizing that rusty lawn mower.